On MSN, they had the headline "Lord of the Rings volcano erupts" when I looked at lunchtime. So yes, it has reached us.
Don't be so hard on yourselves, BB. Given the size of population Australia does amazingly well at sport. When you also consider the size of the country it is even more remarkable. You have to have facilities in all the centres. It is not as if you are in Birmingham and can get the train down to London for better facilities, coaching etc. All that has happened in these Olympics is that Australia hasn't over-achieved to the same extent as previous Olympics.
Good to see the Aussies win a Gold, but Meares was a worthy winner after the 2nd race. Winning a Gold at a sitting down sport...whatever next!
NZ - there is a definite downwards slide there in children's participation in sport. Apart from my youngest boy, who has spent most of life in Scotland, all of my kids had access to excellent and very cheap sporting facilities, all with fully qualified coaches, trained and accredited at government expense in their areas of expertise (I know as I was one of them - went through a fairly rigorous 26 weekends training and assessment to gain a football coaching licence that allowed me to coach up to u12s only!). They all went to Little Athletics, all played football, one played cricket and basketball, one played baseball and one did archery - all at minimal expense other than my or my wife's time and willingness to ferry them around. That situation has now changed - funding has dried up and to participate in a club sport is now costly thanks mainly to compulsary insurance costs as well as equipment costs. As an example, when my kids played, the only cost to play football were the purchase of boots and weekly subs of $1 to pay for ground maintenance and qualified referees - as well as participation in the odd fund raising raffle. My oldest son still lives in Oz and recently told me that he tried to enrol his son with the same club that he played for - enrolment fees for the season for an U6 are $200 plus $5 per week subs, as well as which he was expected to buy boots, socks and shorts. Far too expensive for many families. Now that the gold medals are drying up in Oz, the old clarion call for more sport in schools is being raised - a nonsense as far as I'm concerned as schools already provide way more than their UK counterparts - with calls for competitive rather than mere participation as now. My point of view is that kids will play if they want to play and won't if they don't - when they do something for enjoyment rather than being forced to, they do it well. Most Aussie kids are excellent at ball sports and I put that down to what they do during playtime and lunch time at school. There isn't a school in Australia where you won't find them playing Aussie handball - a very simple yet addictive game using a tennis ball that promotes hand/eye co-ordination and panders to their competitive natures.
Your post above BB is very interesting in a number of ways. It seems that cost is quite a factor in getting youngsters to play, especially when they leave school and find plenty of other things to do with their time. There is a lot of public support here financially to keep sport cheap, but it does seem that a disproportionate amount goes into tennis and cycling. If I should wish to take part in a gentle jog around a proper course, (unlikely) then I would have to take a medical costing around â¬50 and produce a certificate to say that I am fit enough. All children have to be insured before they can go to school in case they have an accident or duff up a teacher. Having said that there are a lot of coaches around to work with the kids in plenty of sports, but I don't know how good they are. It seems to me that getting enough kids involved is a bit like taking on lots of trialists at a football club and only picking out the best to go on. This seems to be the model that the Pozzos have used, sending out the ones on the margins for time at another club to see if they can make it. It looks as if we are now getting the ones who are on 'trial' which would seem to be part of the plan to make WFC safe at least in the championship. So far the club have not bought any players which seems fair if Baz has left things in the mess we are lead to believe, but we will have to produce players eventually that can be sold and make the club a profitable business.
Living on a small island, I find this debate amusing. Like some of the smaller nations in the Olympics, we are grateful for whatever success comes our way. As an example, when Jersey won World Cricket League Division 6 a few years ago, one of the players was a teacher at the school pie has just left. Just about the only sports professionals we have living on the island are members of the rugby team. They gained their 5th promotion in 7 years last season (the first was the season we won the play-offs) and next season will be one division below Saracens. As for the funding of sports facilities, we have a States Department for Education, Sport and Culture so the same body is responsible for the schools, the public sports facilities and grants for the museums, the Opera House and the Arts Centre which is why we have had the bizarre situation of having big names coming to the island and giving performances in our main leisure centre! I'd love to know what Ben Elton, Katherine Jenkins and Jools Holland (they're just the ones I've seen there) made of having to perform there.
Morning all from a brighter West West London - for the first time this morning the traffic has been like a "normal school holiday" traffic! Busy day again - but on vacation count-down!
It's a bit like compulsory figures in figure skating just so slow. I think they should introduce Three Point Turns and Doughnuting in the pits for F1 cars before the start of Grand Prixs for extra points.
Interesting. That reminds me of a class debate I organised with a P7 class in Oz during the lead up to the Sydney Olympics - "Do the Olympics give value for money?". One rather alarming stat that a group came up with during their research was that each gold medal won by Australia up to the point had cost the country $56M. Makes you wonder really.
Afternoon all!! Hope you're all ok I'm off to Milton Keynes to visit my girlfriend and find a place to live over the next few days which is all very exciting/grown up! Interesting debate that's been going on about the Olympics, I do feel we have had a great one, best results since 1908. Heard a very interesting thing on the radio the other day where schools are encouraged to dissuade children from being competitive in P.E lessons and its very hard for schools now to have competitive teams within their borough leagues. I have to say this alarmed me considerably, how are children meant to emulate the great acts we have seen over the past days if 1) they don't play in competitive competition and 2) they haven't lost! A common thing with our gold medal winners is that they have lost and their drive has come from winning again, Mo lost the 10,000m at the Worlds, Jess Ennis was out of the last olympics and lost her world title and yet they drove hard and came out on top. Surely competative P.E lessons is the way to create a legacy or am I just a little hard nosed when it comes to Sports education?
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Interesting discussion about sport in schools and dissuading competition. I have the opposite experience - when my eldest son went to our local village infant school, the head would not allow any competiton, no school teams and "everyone was a winner" sports day. A few years later a new head completely changed things around - they encouraged team sports and set up teams for the older children with the support of parents. By the time Little Miss W_Y left the village, they had a thriving sporting environment with football and netball teams - and a proper sports day with a Mum's race! Hampshire - stay away from Coffee Hall and Netherfield in MK, they are dumps. H - Mrs W_Y got a similar email they other day but from the HMRC telling her she had a Tax Rebate and all she needed to do was tell them her bank account details, the web site it linked to looked very real.
As a teacher, I don't think I'm alone in saying no to the idea. Nothing at all to do with the obvious extra work load it would place on teachers, but more to do with the kids themselves. The focus of PE in schools is to ensure that all children receive instruction in the various disciplines - in other words, it is compulsory for them to participate unless there is some compelling medical reason. I'm sure that any teacher will tell you that the percentage of children sitting out, participating half-heartedly or participating 'rebelliously' has steadily increased - if they don't want to do it, they simply won't - horses to water etc - sadly to the detriment of those who do. I've already mentioned in a previous post that, in my experience, children are more likely to excel if they enjoy the activity that they are undertaking - and, for my money, that won't happen in a school. If this government want to bask in the future sporting success of their citizens, they have to pay for it by ensuring that a range of readily available, easily affordable and appropriately staffed sporting facilities are created out of school hours so that those who really want it can access it.
